ISLAMABAD – Two Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) planes narrowlyavoided a disaster that could have cost hundreds of human lives.
As per Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) sources, due to a technical error inthe air traffic controller system, two PIA planes nearly escaped a head-oncollision mid-air thanks to a timely response from the pilots.
The two PIA flights, PK-352 and PK-786, came very close to each other andcould have collided, but a swift maneuver averted the crash.
As per details, PIA’s flight PK-352 was headed to Islamabad while PK-785flight was moving towards London from Islamabad. Due to the air trafficcontroller’s mistake, both planes were given the same flight level, whichbrought them head-on above the airspace of Cherat. Thanks to the quickresponse from the pilots, a disaster was averted.
However, the incident hasn’t gone unnoticed among the higher-ups of theaviation authority, which has set up a high-level inquiry into the incident.
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This is the second such incident in the past three months, as two passengerplanes narrowly escaped a mid-air collision in Karachi’s airspace.
In that incident, a PIA flight en route from Islamabad to Karachi wasawarded the altitude of 40,000 feet, whereas a foreign airliner was at35,000 feet. The two planes were less than five miles apart, the sourcessaid.
